


The Palace

by anniesburg



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Failed Marriage Proposal, Flirting, Heartbreak, Non-Penetrative Sex, One Night Stand, Perceived Mutual Attraction, Post-Mary but Pre-Game, Rich Girl!Reader, The Reader's A Bad Person, lake sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-15 20:35:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18676948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anniesburg/pseuds/anniesburg
Summary: How Arthur Morgan learned he wasn't a knight in shining spurs.





	The Palace

**Author's Note:**

> so i've been reading the terror and this is largely inspired by one of the chapters therein. i just wanted a lil angst, ya know??

He floats like a moth to your light, inspired by the way the world softens when he looks at you. In direct opposition to the harshness of the environment, you sit with a warm smile and a truly beautiful look in your eye. 

It must be where you come from. The stiff upper-lip’s unmistakable. He can smell the starch used to stiffen your collar from here. You’re no middle-of-the-road merchant’s daughter. Arthur wonders if he’s in the fine company of a storybook princess when he sees you with your parasol. You’re unsullied, fair as the day is long.

And your father only hunts money, which is all the conspiring fathers care for. Outlaws of a worse nature were trying to barter you, they died easy. Hosea wonders how much your family would have paid for your head to remain attached to your shoulders. Must be double, he figures, gratitude pays better than fear. 

Their course shouldn’t change, of course. Woman or no woman, money or no money. But cash calls like a lake-siren, it pulls the company eastward with a reckless abandon. 

Arthur knows intimately that feeling of abandon. He stares at you, abashed in the face of beauty, of kindness. Because when you catch him looking you give a delicate gesture— indisputably come-hither. And he, bound by a chain at the neck is powerless to resist. 

You delight in what he would consider his meagre attempts at wit. He doesn’t remember feeling so at ease talking to another person, let alone a woman. There is an idea, he understands as you stare at him completely unabashed contrary to him that his secrets have been found out. 

Perhaps you’ve found his soul with no trouble. Perhaps he has a soul to find, a sensitive sweetness that Arthur thought long shot-dead and buried deep. When you reach out to touch him, the blind ache of contact barely lasts a second. Your hand is warm, light on his forearm and he wishes it will never leave. 

He’s never wanted summoning so much in his life. Leaving camp is hard, but caring for you the way a suitor might, husband might is the easiest choice he’s ever made. He’d shoot a thousand stags to keep you warm in winter. He watches you effortlessly dismiss criticism of Pearson’s cooking and considers it a compliment to himself when the game was shot with his rifle. 

Luckily for him, you seem to have the same ideas as he. You look for him in the crowd of twenty or so at camp. You lift yourself onto your toes and wave in a high arc to get his attention. You tell him of your life at home, how you can hardly wait to be returned to your parents. 

Maybe that would have given pause had he the time to think about anything save the curve of your grin. Or the way the sunlight makes your hair sparkle. 

You have a habit of talking about home with a detached wistfulness. It lulls him like a summer day, you hook your arm through his and take him on long walks through a forest that has never looked so beautiful. When you speak of sprawling gardens, playful fountains, stone walls, all Arthur hears is a place he might rescue you from. 

He’s sure you’re not in wanting of a prince, you adore him so openly. Whatever he is, some ugly serf that toils in blood and muck, you want him. You touch him voluntarily, no sign of disgust on your face. 

“I saw ducks down by the lake the other night, sweet thing.” You tell him one afternoon, perhaps a few days from the gang encroaching on your father’s estate. You’ve been humming, twirling the stem of a dandelion lazily between your fingers. 

Arthur’s never been one prone to idleness, but the shine you’ve taken to him makes dollar-signs spin in Dutch’s eyes. He’ll let the man dally with the woman with gold stitching at the hem of her dress. 

“That soYou like ‘em?” He asks, aware that ducks are nothing special. But you sound so dreamily enraptured with the sight of watching them paddle in the water.

“Very much, I think they’re a most overlooked animal. Don’t you?” You return. Truth be told, he hadn’t considered it. 

“Guess so, s’pose I’ve overlooked ‘em.” He says. You purse your lips a moment, as if thinking. 

Your mouth curls into a smile that he’s accustomed to, shockingly warm and sweet to the brim. You hold out the dandelion to him like an offering. He holds it like treasure, staring at it a while before looking back at you. 

“I understand why you might. Often the most interesting creatures are left uninspected,” you give him a knowing look. Were he a weaker man, he might blush. “and I find that tragic.” 

He doesn’t know what to say when you’re staring at him like that. Arthur doesn’t know how to describe how he feels about getting to watch you have an idea. It makes your eyes widen, it hits you like a wave of brilliance that he waits to be shared with him. 

“Perhaps, with me, you might see them like I do?” You ask, but you needn’t. Arthur’s head nods near-independent of his brain. You give him a good-natured, if teasing smile. “I’m glad you think so. Tonight, then? You can come with me to the water after everyone’s gone to sleep.” 

He hadn’t expected your commentary to turn into an invitation. But Arthur straightens up, he gives a single nod to confirm his involvement. But you don’t end the conversation. Your eye turns to another golden-coloured dandelion. You pluck it, twirling it in your fingers. 

Night can’t come too quickly. Arthur shuffles through supper and watches you over the smoky haze of the fire. You’re aware of him, catching his eye every so often and making him scurry to catch his dignity again. 

He hears you talk with Mary-Beth about retiring early tonight, citing the all-encompassing heat as a prime factor in your exhaustion. You save Arthur from a torrential downpour of doubt when you sneak him a wink and flash him a toothy smile. So the dalliance you planned to take with him at your side is to be a secret? How interesting. 

It makes Arthur wonder if you truly might be communicating some sort of mutual understanding. He has no way with women, would be the first to call himself a fool. But perhaps your laughing eyes and wandering hands have a meaning after all. 

Arthur has no illusions about what he is. He’s told you the things he gets up to, what usually occupies his time when not playing companion to a beautiful thing. And you looked keen to hear more in the way that all sheltered women initially are. He learned nothing, he realized as he embellished a story a touch around the edges. He’s still at the whim of a lovely face that finds him special. 

Stranger things have happened, he reasons with himself. A rich girl like you might have men lined up, might’ve still yearned for something more intimate and real than a loveless marriage. Perhaps you think he might play rugged saviour, you have no complaints at all about sleeping under stars. The more he thinks about it, as the day rescinds its presence and night comes out to wrap cold around his shoulders, the more he likes it. The more he can picture himself as strapping and worthy of you. 

You do retire early, putting on the show of rising tossing your hair before sauntering towards your tent. He half-expects you to pause in the doorway, to give Arthur some further indication. But you do not. 

He sits by the fire as it dies down, as the stars above his head grow bright and all-consuming. Arthur doesn’t think he slept while waiting for you, but your hand on his shoulder shakes him away all the same

Still looking at the stars, he turns his head to correct that by gazing at you. You’ve startled him, but the good-natured look on your face suggests you don’t think any less of him for dozing off. 

“Do you still want to see the ducks, Mister Morgan?” You ask in a hushed, intimate whisper. Arthur grunts and lowly groans as he shifts and stands up from his sleeping spot by the log. 

“Sure,” he tells you. You take his hand and help him to his feet. Strength be damned, his cheeks go pink at that. 

You’re wearing your housecoat over your chemise, he figures and does his best not to stare. The way you’ve covered yourself head-to-foot every other time he’s seen you has done very little for his wild imagination.

Arthur is all too aware of the continued presence of your hand holding his. It’s crucially different to your arm looped around his, there is a persistent closeness to your fingers entangled with his. You half-guide, half-meander with him towards the water and say very little.

In fact, you’re almost silent until the dark shoreline comes into view. Then, you turn to him. 

“The ducks are shy, little things. Even if you have food for them, I’ve noticed they won’t come near.” You say. Arthur nods, feeling more foolish than usual. But this is the first time he’s been truly alone with you. 

“Lots’a things out here’re scared, see,” Arthur says. He gives your hand a squeeze that has you ginning through the night. 

“I’m not. The only thing I have to fear, I suppose, are the wolves.” You say, casting a glance back towards the dying light from the fire and the dark trees partially obscuring it. “I should hate to think what would happen to us if we were further from camp in this wilderness.” 

“‘Cause of the wolves?” Arthur asks, he does not know why. Perhaps he wants to practice his wit, to see you look at him with surprise and joy.

That does not happen. 

Instead, you look to him slowly. A smile on your face could mince his insides but this one just sends heat flooding in all directions. You look coquettish, as wolfish as the beasts you apparently fear. 

“No, sweet thing,” you say. Your voice is breathy, you tease him far more effectively. “because of my reputation.” 

Arthur’s eyes go wide as you drop his hand, stepping over rocks and brambles to smoother shores and heading for a very inviting-looking long. He’s helpless to do anything but follow, sitting next to you when you motion for it. 

He has to wonder after a few minutes of staring at the still water if the plan was ever to look at ducks. Instead, he finds himself more drawn to the fact that you keep looking at him. Arthur would never describe you as aloof, nor the picture of impropriety. But you have a way of joking, of nudging him in the direction of laughter with a deadpan seriousness in your eye. 

So when you stand to leave him again after a moment, he stiffens involuntarily. Arthur’s not sure what you intend when you give a small shrug. 

“Well, no ducks tonight,” you say. You sound awfully certain, he begins to wonder more openly if it was ever the intention. “in that case, I think I will go for a swim. Care to join me?” 

Arthur stays sitting, wide-eyed and unable to repress the fool-grin on his face. Swimming, right. Funny, he wants to tell you but no words come. Part of him considers that this might not be a joke at the very same time as he wonders if it is. He’s frozen, perhaps in fear, and watching you with an intensely forward gaze. 

You begin to untie the belt at the waist of your housecoat, and then the ribbon at the neck. Arthur’s mind wanders, ready to be snapped back to the present with a punchline. The sight of you, naked completely under your coat certainly packs a punch. 

He resists the urge to ogle you, even if that’s your clear intent. Arthur gets only a flash of your body from the front before you turn-tail and walk into the clammy embrace of the lake. Your hips sway with a flirtatious purpose and he’s overcome by a unique sensation.

Every inch of the man is frozen to his spot. Well, almost every inch. His cock goes from entirely limp and uninterested to ramrod-straight in just three seconds. The heat is impossibly intense, so too is the throbbing sensation between his legs. 

The sight of you that so greatly affects him is thankfully gone quickly. You wade into the water up to your hips without a single, backward glance. Pushing off from shore, you turn to him when fully submerged up to your shoulders with that familiar stare. You don’t have to say it, you want him to join you. 

But Arthur can’t fucking move. He’s stock-still, near-gaping like a virgin. He feels heat blossom in his cheeks and hopes distance and moonlight makes it too difficult for you to see. 

“Arthur,” you say, loud enough so your voice carries over the water. He straightens up, like your voice snapped him out of some strange trance. “the ducks are too shy to come swim with me. Please, don’t be shy yourself.” 

His limbs feel heavy but without a word, Arthur rises from the log. Aware of your eyes at his back as he turns, he begins to undress. He promises himself he’ll keep at least fifteen feet from you, if this is a joke he would hate to make you uncomfortable with his bodily reaction. 

He casts a glance over his shoulder, you’re not looking. You’re floating on your back, the curve of your breasts and thighs rising above the water. Arthur shoves his union suit down his thighs, annoyed with how long he’s taken. Surely he’s bored you by now. 

Taking the distance at a run, Arthur rushes headlong into the water. He cares little if the splash rouses anyone at camp. All that matters to him is that you remain unaware of his intense erection. To his dismay, very little changes. 

The water isn’t cold, but his teeth are chattering, he keeps his distance from you but is eventually forced to kick off from shore. 

Still, you float like a languid mermaid. 

“Hello, Arthur,” you say. The sound of his name makes his cock twitch in the water. You turn over, smiling that devil-smile as you begin to swim closer to him. 

But, apparently, you notice something in the waxy moonlight. His face has gone just as pale, his nerves are standing at attention as easily as his prick. You stop, thank goodness. 

“I’ve seen their nest a bit further upstream,” you offer. Arthur stares blankly.

“What?” He asks. Oh, the ducks. “I— right. We can— f’you wanna we can go take a look.” He resists the urge to add a comment about how much it matters to you. Arthur knows he lacks the skill to articulate that thought as a compliment. He’d hate to see you recoil in this generous state.

He begins to wonder as the two of you swim, yet again, if this has anything at all to do with ducks. Now further from the line of shore, you very suddenly turn back to him. You expression is still sweetly familiar, warm and smiling as you start to swim at him again.

You’ve learned, you’re slower. 

“Miss—” Arthur doesn’t know what compels him to speak now when it’s been so difficult to articulate himself in front of you.

Nevertheless, you silence whatever he intends to say with a soft hush. You move silently through the water, closer and closer until all at once you’re nowhere near fifteen feet from him. You’re close enough to press your chest against his. 

Your arms wrap around his shoulders, Arthur tries to stand and barely manages it. The water’s deep but after a moment of fumbling, his legs find purchase. 

As he scrambles, he grabs you and holds you against his chest. You’re warmer than the water, soft to the touch in a way he’s never felt before. His own body is a roadmap of roughness and scars, in contrast with your unblemished perfection. 

He’s woefully unprepared for the way your fingertips feel as you touch his skin. Goosebumps stand up on his shoulders as the burden of holding you up shifts entirely to him. Arthur wants to say something but can’t find the words as you trace your thumbs over his collarbone. 

“Please,” he finally struggles. It’s not his proudest moment and he hears you giggle near his ear. You’re kissing his cheek, his jaw, his neck— clearly there was something in his tone that conveyed how needy he feels. 

“Just relax,” you whisper, making the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He feels teeth at his throat, you nibble gently at his skin while your hands travel lower. 

Arthur moans, it’s a preparatory sound. All that occupies his mind is the way you expertly map out his body and the effect it has on his now pulsing cock. Your hands travel over his chest, the slight outward curve of his belly. And then one of your fists wraps loosely around his length. 

“Is this for me?” You ask, all breathy and sweet. Arthur moans again, you take it as a yes. “My, my, you’re full of surprises.” 

It’s no shock to you, evidently, that he’s big in your hand. Arthur already feels weak, tired of holding you up but unable and unwilling to let go. You pump him gently, slowly, but not for long. Soon enough, you stop and angle your hips in a noticeably different fashion. 

He feels you. You’re hot, as hot as he and very wet. How, he wonders, can anything be wetter than water?

Your hips give a thrust of alarming power, but you’ve yet to sheathe yourself inside him. Your head lolls back, though. Arthur wonders what it is you’re doing when you repeat the motion with less-wild bucking. 

It’s a strange sensation, your hand is still providing a delicious friction but the head of his cock is pressed somewhere near-intimate. Arthur considered himself at least passably knowledgable of the female form, but he’s never done anything like this before. 

And it certainly does not help that his experience with unpaid, naked women is slim pickings. There have only been a few, messy tumbles in hotel rooms or on his cot in his tent. Nothing all-encompassing, nothing electrifying. But your hand could send sparks through his whole body as it works up and down his shaft. 

The way you work your hips against him could be magic, or experience. He likes both equally, likes the way you keep him close enough to touch while you presumably take your pleasure from him. 

It’s an odd thing, that women and men share an understanding of the build-up leading to a climax. You nudge yourself against his cock, forehead to his shoulder and he can hardly imagine it’s anything other action. 

“Arthur,” you say, your voice hides moans and sighs that threaten the stability of his legs again. He shifts, his arms around your waist holding you tighter. 

“I got’cha,” he rumbles, unsure of what else to say. He’s right, he does. 

It makes you giggle, a noise that teeters on erotic as it dissolves into a moan. You don’t say his name again, but you’re far from silent. 

Arthur tries to help, he thrusts dully against you, spurring your fist wrapped around him to move a bit quicker. He’s never been one for patience, not with sex. He feels teeth on his neck again, you’re teeth and the sensation could knock the wind out of him. He nearly comes on the spot. 

But not before you. You give a shuddering gasp, appearing to debate if you should slow the rolling of your hips or increase the pace. Whatever you feel, Arthur has to wonder if it’s jealousy that makes most men deny women their pleasure. 

You tilt your head back, likely with the express purpose of showing him the way his body makes yours sing. Your face is beautiful, contorting into a range of lustful expressions. You make your decision, throwing your lower body forward against his faster than you have before. Your fist squeezes him, Arthur groans but can’t bring himself to close his eyes. 

Not when you’re looking at him like that, a little smile on your face as you take and take. This is a perfect moment, caught in a green-tinged lake with you in his arms and he in yours. 

With an air of finality, a broken moan leaves you. Your hips stop their rocking, slowly and your shoulders relax. The heat from you is intense, radiant. Arthur holds you up, you pat his arm with gratitude. 

A few moments drag by as you get your bearings. Then, you tilt your head to the side and look at him with a rapt fascination.

“Did you like the show?” You ask, Arthur lacks the bearings necessary to nod. But he did, you can see it on his face. “Good, now it’s my turn.” 

He likes the way you say it, even if it makes his toes curl on the rock. Your fist, gone lax as you worked yourself to an orgasm tightens around his cock again. Arthur grunts involuntarily and his eyes are finally able to close. Watching you come is one thing, but he can’t help feeling appraised now that the attention is stoutly on him. 

It’s not as if you tell him to look at you, which Arthur’s grateful for. Instead, your warm hand pulls at a devastating and thoroughly varying pace. Your name falls from his mouth, pulled from his throat. He hears you sigh, one hand pressed to a vulnerable location and the other to his back. You still have your arms around him, making him feel invisible to anyone else watching. This is your moment. 

Arthur wants this forever, he realizes. You care enough to touch him this way, to grin and look at him without shame. Perhaps it’s wrong to want that, he knows who and what he is. But he does want it. 

Your fingers are at his back, your nails pressing into the meat of his shoulder. There’s a faint stinging, a beautiful ache that offsets the building pleasure between his thighs. He feels lightheaded all of a sudden, the mixing sensations so different to how he touches himself. 

He never wants to be alone again, he’s found you. He’ll be all right. 

Then, it’s over. Not quickly, of course. The warm water and your searching hand teases from him an electric-warm orgasm that lasts far longer than any he remembers. He remembers the torturous build, that’s all-too familiar, but the endless come-down is entirely new. You hold him while it runs its course, of course you do. He hopes, although his eyes were closed, that you enjoyed yourself. 

There’s a peculiar loss when he’s boneless and wanting to sink to his knees in the lake water. Arthur opens his eyes. Your hand, and by extension, you are gone. He’s alone in the middle of the lake, but hears a splashing from the way he came. 

Arthur watches you swim away with no backward glance and admires what he can see of your rear as you do. After a beat, he follows. 

You’ve waited for him at the shore and thrown your housecoat over your naked body. But your hair is still dripping. You’re still grinning like a cheshire cat. That appraising stare continues as he trudges from the lake and begins to tug on his clothes. 

The two of you walk arm-in-arm back to camp, completely in silence. But just as he’s about to leave you at your tent you grab him with a greater ferocity. Arthur’s tugged, bodily to you, yielding out of surprise. He braces himself for the kiss that comes on fast. Your hand momentarily holds the back of his head in a firm grip. 

But you still say nothing when you pull away, darting inside your tent. Arthur stands there a minute, but not much longer. He collapses into his own cot, finding a restless sleep. 

He wakes just before dawn, having dreamt for a few hours of that same warmth you so effortlessly wrapped him in. He feels whole, correct. All his limbs are in the right order and his head is clearer than it’s been in some time. Arthur feels a call he thought he forgot the sound of, the desire to leave his cot and seek you out. 

Surely, he assumes, that well-loved feeling must have roused you from sleep as well. Surely you’re wandering the still camp over morning dew-coated grass and watching the rising sun. He sets out to find you. 

But you’re not there. 

You’re still abed, so he resolves to waiting by the campfire. Hours tick by, Pearson bores him with complaints about running low on fresh meat. The feeling of newness, of rightness slowly slips away with the return of the humdrum. 

That is, until you finally emerge from your tent. It’s late, you slept in without a care for what anyone thinks. And you breeze towards the round table where Arthur sits with a bowl of porridge for breakfast. 

He nods when you sit down, you give him a sleepy smirk that sets his insides alight. You’re dressed, at least, and there is no sign of your housecoat save for the memory of last night. He waits patiently and wordlessly, the combination that’s coloured most of his life, for you to be done with your food. 

“Uh, Miss?” He asks when you’ve taken your final bites and rise to return the tin bowl. You pause. “You— you wanna go for a walk with me? Just out near the forest?” 

“It’s almost eleven, Arthur,” you say. “it’s a bit warm, don’t you think?” It doesn’t strike him as odd that you don’t understand. He resolves to help you understand with increased urgency in his tone. 

“But—.” He tries. And then your smirk becomes a soft smile, the kind that eased him into this kind of love. You nod. 

“Of course I’ll walk with you, Arthur.” There is a final nod before you move to drop the bowl into the wash basin near Pearson’s cooking station. 

Arthur stands too, straightening up and lifting his hat off his head to smooth down his hair. When you’re ready, he offers his arm for you to take. You do, and you walk away from camp. 

He has an idea of where this needs to happen. The nerves in his chest are playing their part, but they’re accompanied by the booming thud of a heart in love. It steels him, pushes him forward towards a small glad not far from where the trees begin to thin out. Beyond that, town, civilization. It feels like an appropriate middle ground. 

Dandelions bloom around an old stump. Without a word, you sit on it and pluck a flower from around its base, leaving Arthur to say his peace. 

You’re in position, things are going well. Arthur’s too nervous, he realizes, to take a seat next to you. It occurs to him that he’s looming, shifting from one foot to another as he towers and casts his shadow over your face. He hopes, as he looks at you, that it is expectation he sees in your eyes. With an unexpected lifting of his spirits, Arthur sinks down on to one knee in front of you. His hand only shakes slightly as he removes his hat. 

“Now, I know how this is gonna sound,” Arthur starts. “and I know what I am. I come by it honestly. You deserve the best a man can offer you, and there’s better men than me.” 

He hasn’t stuttered yet, at least. You watch him with unreadable eyes. 

“But,” Arthur sighs, “I do care for you. And that’s somethin’ I’m sure comes easy to lots. But there ain’t no lord or king in this country who feels half as strong, I can promise you that. And if I’m right in thinkin’ you feel the same—”

“Oh, God in Heaven,” you interrupt. “please tell me you aren’t intending to ask me to marry you.” 

He has no answer that you will like, apparently. On one knee, his hat crumpled over his heart, he waits for you in awed silence. You reach out and pat his shoulder, the affection almost patronizing, now. 

“Mister Morgan, you’re a very decent man. You’re kind, gentler than you look in spite of the rough edges that may never be smoothed,” your voice sounds distantly polite. Complimentary but only shallowly. 

Arthur feels a pain in his chest that is too pressingly familiar. 

“And you’re far more intelligent than you let people give you credit for,” you continue. The pause is crucial, you’ve entered this conversation armed. “enough to understand that I will never be an outlaw’s wife. That would not be right, could never be acceptable.” 

He tries to speak, to say anything other than the looping completion to his sentence proposing marriage. Arthur composed it while waiting for you to wake that morning, but the outline predated that by weeks. It had, he fancied, popped into his head the first time he saw you. 

You seem to see the confusion in his eyes, the hurt. It makes you laugh softly, without any humour. 

“Please don’t look unkindly on what happened last night. I had a wonderful time,” you insist. “The dalliance in the lake was pleasurable, don’t you think? But please, sweet thing, there is no burden on you to act in any way on my behalf because of our momentary closeness.” 

Arthur looks at you. You smile, but without the same warmth as he’s grown accustomed to. 

“It’s not as if you compromised my honour,” you continue with a darkening to that beautiful smile. It makes his stomach lurch. 

He still has nothing to say, nothing to fall back on. There is only a rising pain in him, made all the worse by its repeat offence in his life. 

“I am to marry, you see.” You say, lifting the daffodil to your line of sight and spinning it as you did when you discussed the ducks. “But you’re terribly wrong about to who. There are no kings in America, Mister Morgan. Only families. And yours—”

You glance over your shoulder, in the direction of camp. With a subtle lift of your eyebrow to denote displeasure, you spin the dandelion faster. 

“You’re engaged?” Arthur asks, unable to help the disappointment in his voice. 

“Of course. There is family in New York keen to wed their eldest son to me. He’s to inherit his father’s garment factories. Of course, I don’t intend to be a weaver’s wife, either. He’ll have to speculate in oil—” you cut yourself off, deciding against drawing out the conversation. 

You stand up, still twirling the weed between your fingers like this is all a very forgettable experience. Arthur, near-absurdly, is still on one knee. He scrambles to stand after you. 

“I really must go now. That strapping fellow, Mister MacGuire? He’s offered to accompany myself and Miss Jones into town later today. You’re welcome to join us. But I suggest if you do that you change your trousers. And perhaps your expression.” He wants to recoil when you reach out to touch his forearm. But he stays still. Even as you leave, he stays still. 

No, he wants to tell you. But he can’t bring himself to say anything else. Arthur’s eyes stay fixed at your back as you wander off towards camp without him, twirling your dandelion as you go.


End file.
